


Faultlessly

by Elisif



Series: The Angband Generosity Series [4]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M, Non-Consensual Touching, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Pet Play, Photography Kink, Rape/Non-con Elements, Shaving Kink, forced stripping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 10:58:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20274799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisif/pseuds/Elisif
Summary: An improved rewrite of my previous fic about Sauron wanting to send Maedhros' brothers an update. Shameless PWP of the "maedhros having an awful time" variety.





	Faultlessly

Sauron led Maedhros down a long hallway by a leash about his neck, then pulled him into a small locked side-chamber. 

The lights came on; Maedhros blinked uncomfortably in their brightness, as he took in his surroundings. The small room contained only a carpet, a waist high object covered by a black cloth, and a full-body mirror beside it; not Angband’s usual torture paraphanelia, but the Maia’s expression as it removed the rope from around his neck was far too gleeful for Maedhros to hope it would be merciful.

Leaving him in front of the locked door to stand beside the covered object, it looked at him and said:

“For the longest time, I have wished to send your brothers an updated image of your likeness. But drawing or painting somehow did not meet my requirements, so I abandoned the idea. Until now.”

With casual flamboyance, Sauron ripped back the blackcloth from the hunched object, revealing a pair of wooden boxes on thin metal legs, connected by an accordion fold of leather, and with a brass lens fixed at the front like a sawed-off telescope. It ran its perfectly manicured pianist’s fingers along the many gilded buttons of the machine, turned to its captive at the door.

“Do you know what this is?” it said. 

Maedhros stared at his feet. 

“A- a daguerreotype, my lord,” he said. “A camera. My father’s invention.”

“Correct, for once,” said Sauron. “No need to look so frightened, we did not acquire the technology from any new Noldorin captives! No, we simply found it in your father’s archives, which of course, we still possess. It’s taken some time, but we’ve even managed to improve upon the original design. This one even captures images in colour. Don’t you think that’s wonderful?”

“Yes, my lord,” he said, bitterly.

“Very well then,” it said. “We’ll use it to take some lovely portraits of what you look like now to send to Kanafinwe, as well as copies to send to every other Noldorin household in Beleriand. Take your clothes off.”

Maedhros was more than shamefully accustomed to nudity in front of the Maia and his master at this point; it was the norm, clothing of any sort in their presence the exception. But this was different, horribly different. His hands froze momentarily around the ragged laces of his trousers and he half-opened his mouth to say something in protest, before he came to his senses and remembered just how brutal the Maia’s retaliation would be for anything other than that instant’s hesitation. Whatever shame he felt, he would bear it after he had first obeyed. 

As always, he balled his hands into fists and bit down on his tongue to stop himself from covering himself with his hands. But he could not help hunching his shoulders and pressing his chin into his neck in shame as he waited, shivering with his arms wrapped around his chest, his toes perched on the fringed edge of the carpet.

The maia returned with an ivory box of cosmetics jars in its hands.

The maia pressed up against Maedhros’ shivering body as it worked at his face, one hand with the brush, the other tightly gripping his chin to steady it. With a myriad of powders and blushes, it painted him, layer upon layer; it licked its thumb and rubbed a cover over the thin scars tracing his jawline. It traced mascara onto his long eyelashes, commenting on how pretty they were; it dipped its fingers into a glass of scented oil, traced them along the tips of his ears, and jammed gold studs through those piercings there which could still hold earrings after the ripping out they had endured in his initial capture. Even with his eyes pinched shut, Maedhros could feel every detail of the Maia’s outfit against his prone skin; the hard stiffened leather and polished metal buttons of its boots against his calves, quilt-soft tights and fringed tunic edge tracing against his hips; the cold hardness of its massive engraved belt buckle pushing into his soft stomach and jutting upwards into his ribcage whenever the Maia moved.

It had been at least a few weeks since the Maia had last shaved him. Maedhros, therefore, when he heard running water and smelled caustic lye soap in the room, knew that the Maia was preparing to remove the only barely-visible layer of red fuzz on his head and groin it so detested.

As always, he braced himself against the shame of the Maia’s hand slipping between his thighs, its fingertips pulling at the base of his shaft to stretch and flatten the junction between his thin hips. But then, for once, it halted, razor in hand.

Maedhros opened his eyes. 

“For once, I shall restrain myself of my personal preferences,” it said, letting go, stepping back, and setting the razor aside. “I of course, prefer you pink and smooth as a piece of meat, but I fear if I don’t leave at least a little red on you this time, your brothers may not recognise you in the pictures. Just this once, you can keep a little,” it said, runnings its fingers across his scalp. “Now, isn’t that kind of your owners?” it said. “In fact, I may add a little MORE red, just to be safe.”

Before he could understand what the Maia meant, it began to gleefully whisk the powdered rouge-brush back and forth between his legs. Somehow, this was a violation too many, and Maedhros screamed and jerked back against the walls of the room.

“Stop!” he screamed, pressed flat against the wall and shaking.

Brush and compact in hand, the maia just stared at him with a look of wearied disappointment from where it stood, and brushed back its long blonde hair from its eyes.

“Tsk tsk” it simply said. “I thought my Master and I had trained you out of this sort of childish nonsense at this point. For shame, Maitimo. For shame. _ Come here. _ ”

Not daring to further antagonise the Maia, Maedhros lowered his arms and stepped forwards. He again pinched his eyes shut as, aggressively, the Maia grabbed his shaft, rolled back the skin of his tip, and daubed the rouge all over the sensitive exposed head. Mortifyingly, Maedhros squirmed as began to feel the involuntary stirrings of hardness, felt himself begin to swell in its tight grip, and tears stung in his eyes. 

“This is what happens when you misbehave,” it said, mockingly, forcefully dabbing the brush against the achingly sensitive skin. “You will obey without question, or you will get a worse version of whatever you resist. You know this,” it said.

“Yes my lord,” he said, squirming in shame as the Maia let him go. 

“Face the mirror,” it said, leaving him to turn a mechanical handle on the wall which lowered a set of chains over Maedhros’ head. Promptly, his wrists were fixed to them and by some hidden mechanism, his arms were pulled apart into a taut crucifix. 

A lesser maia entered the chamber, bowed to the lieutenant, and took its place under the cloth behind the daguerreotype. Grimly, Maedhros tried to distract himself from the sight of his own reflection in the mirror beside it by recalling the chemistry of the process he had helped his father with in his past life- iodine, silver, bromide, mercury fumes, gold chloride- but his focus was lost as the lieutenant came around to stand behind him and gripped him tightly by the shoulders. From the corners of his vision, he could see the maia’s red- painted, perfectly manicured nails resting on his collar bones as its sharp thumbs kneaded into the back of his neck.

“Do not close your eyes,” it snapped against his ear. “You look straight at yourself in that mirror and you do not look away.”

Something overcame him then. Some small shred of resistance rekindled its fire within him, and he squeezed his eyes shut, refused to look at the abomination against his kind that was his reflection.

“No,” he said, against all rationality and self-defense. _ “No.” _

“No?” said the Maia, incredulously. “Fine then. If you will not look in that mirror with your eyes, then I will make you look by other means.”

The maia yanked hard on one of Maedhros’ ears, snapped its fingers; instantly an image exploded into Maedhros’ brain and he screamed at the force of it, the way the sorcery forced the image onto his retinas, blinding him to all else and making it impossible not to focus his every pulse and pore upon it.

The image was of the throne-room in Finwe’s old palace in Tirion. The cavernous space with its golden floor mosaic map of Aman strewn daily with fresh flowers, its purple and blue stained glass windows depicting the great journey, the illustrious marble throne his other grandfather had carved, the great crowds Tirion’s citizens wandering the space and gossipping to escape the midday heat- it had all been perfectly excised and lifted from his own treasured memories. But beside the illustrious and dignified portraits of his father and grandfather in their silks and pearls and diamonds, the golden frame that had once held his own such portrait contained the image of himself from Sauron’s mirror. Bound cruciform, naked and half-erect, skeletally thin and virtually bald, Sauron’s foul brand scorched upon his chest, for all of Tirion to see.

Maedhros _ shrieked _as Sauron again snapped his fingers and let the image fade its scorch-marks from his eyelids; he opened his eyes achingly wide, gulping reality into his eyes the way a drowning man gasps for air, not daring to close them again. 

But the relief was short, and as he came to his senses, he wept.

“Please lord,” he said, slumped in his chains. “_ Please. _”

He collapsed as far as the chains around his arms would let him, sagging like a marionette on a string. Truly, he sobbed and begged:

“It’s the only thing I have left in all the world. How they remember me, how they picture me. Just this one thing. _ Please _.”

For one impossibly brief moment, the corners of Sauron’s mouth twisted.

“You disgust me,” it finally said. “But very well. If your behaviour in the coming days is faultless, and I do mean _ faultless _, I will consider sending these pictures only to your brothers, and not to the rest of the Noldor. Anger me, however, and what you just saw becomes your legacy. Anger me, and every Noldor in Beleriand’s last memory of you will be with your cock hanging out for all to see like a dog.”

“Thank you my lord, thank you, thank you-”

“Get up,” it said, disgustedly, angling its leg to kick him. Roughly he scrambled to his feet, still shaking, and braced himself, shaking with cold and shame as the maia at the camera moved the cover from the lens. 

There was silence for a moment, than it lifted the blackcloth from its head and said:

“Lord Mairon, this process can only work if he holds absolutely still. His shivering keeps making his cock move,” it said. 

“I’m trying, Lord, I swear! I swear I cannot help it-”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” said Mairon. “I’ll hold it still, Thrak.”

It reached over into the frame, pinched the base of his cock with its thumb and forefinger and held it tightly still for the seemingly eternal duration of the shots.

Finally, a knock at the door made the Maia relinquish its grip; Maedhros groaned shamefully in relief as the Maia finally let go of him and, even if only for a few seconds, left him alone. But relief turned to terror when he saw the looming shadow and heard the scrape of iron boots on stone flags that told him the only person in Arda he feared more than Mairon had come to pay a visit. The black-shrouded figure gaped behind him in his reflection with a look of sadistic glee on its face, and he felt as naked before it as he had when it had stripped him before its court on his very first day in Angband.

“Did I miss it, love?” he heard Morgoth say as it kissed Mairon full upon the mouth at the door. “No, you are just in time,” Mairon said, removing and setting aside his master’s furred cloak. “We just finished the portraits, and now I think we are ready for the second part.”

_ Second part? _

Maedhros gritted his teeth to stop from screaming; faultless, he reminded himself, his behaviour must be _ faultless _, as, to his horror, the lesser maia removed the daguerrotype from its box, walked over with it, and bent down in front of him to hold it level with his waist, laying a hand upon his skinny hip. 

“You said you wanted some closeups, lords?” it said.

Mairon grinned.

“Some photos just of his genitals, yes. In high quality. A little extra surprise to put in the envelope for Kanafinwe to enjoy!” it said.

Maedhros suppressed a gritted scream between his teeth; desperately, he sucked his hips in, squirmed terribly as Thrak held and positioned his penis at various angles, adjusted its position for shading and lighting, rolled back the skin of the head, held it up to the light and carefully photographed it. Then, it mechanically brought him to humiliating hardness and photographed that too. 

As it did, Melkor pinched one of the ribs of his back between clawed thumb and forefinger.

“You spoil him, Mairon,” the Vala’s voice said. ”He’s here to be punished, not doted on! He’s much too well-fed for the length of time he’s been here.”

“We were in agreement,” Mairon snapped. “You got the back half of him to use for your games, and I got his front half to keep unscarred and pretty to my liking. Arse for you, cock for me, we flipped a coin, remember?”

“Yes, but I still let you wash and shave my share of him. I should be allowed to insist my half is skinnier than this.”

“And when did you last pay any attention at all to your share of him? I’m the one who did all the work to turn him into something appropriate for us, do you know how many bruises and fingernail scratches he gave me? How many thankless days of being screamed at and spit on I endured to give you what you wanted? If I had known you valued the subtleties of my crafts so cheaply, I’d not have tried nearly so hard-”

“Do not test me, Mairon.”

It poked its finger between the clenched backs of his legs.

“Look how tightly clenched those lovely white thighs are! You’d miss that if he were any thinner, that’s for sure.”

Maedhros nearly screamed as it smacked him upon the arse, would have fallen forward in his chains and collapsed if not for the command playing itself over and over in his head. _ Faultless, _ he told himself. _ Faultless _, his behaviour must be. The portrait in Tirion, he agonisingly reminded himself; however torturous, it was worth every ounce of suffering to stop that image becoming his legacy.

“All done, lords!” said the Maia at the camera, emerging from broadcloth. “Would you lords like a portrait with both of you in it? The dog and the owners?”

“Don’t you mean the dog and the dogcatchers?” said Morgoth, laughing too hard at its own joke.

“In that case,” said the Maia. “You should make him sit like a dog between the two of you!”

_ Faultless _ , Maedhros told himself, over and over as the chains at his wrists were undone and hands, one pair clawed, one pair manicured, pressed him down on his shoulders to the floor. _ Faultless _, he told himself as a sharp boot kicked him against the base of his spine as he knelt.

“Spread your legs for your brother, whore,” it said.

_ Faultless, faultless, his behaviour must be faultless... _

Maedhros fainted.

… 

It was a stormy night in Mithrim. The winds, stirred up against the vastness of the misty lake, tossed a relentless hail of pinecones onto the newly erected white-shingle roof. To Maglor, seated by his sickly brother’s bedside and sewing late into the night, the drumming was pleasant and calming, but the sudden noises interspersed with periods of calm distressed his sick brother terribly. Again and again, Maglor had to pause to calm and reassure him it was just the pines, brush the sweaty strands of red back from his forehead, pad his face with a cloth dipped in aloe, and readjust the blankets over him. 

Once more, the noise startled him; Maedhros cried out, fought piteously against the blankets he was too weak to lift. Quickly, Maglor removed a small wooden box from the bedside chest and opened it. Inside was an indigo cloth stored in a white powder, which he removed, folded and laid on the pillow beneath his brother’s face. 

“Shh,” said Maglor. “Shh, shhh…”

How they would have coped these last weeks without that cloth was beyond him. Carnistir had realised early on that while their brother would not always respond to assurances writ in words, he WOULD respond to familiar sounds and smells, and had the brilliant fortitude to suggest a cloth for him in a box filled with marble dust- the smell of their childhood home, and above all, of their mother. “You’ll hurt him,” the healers had said. “Putting dust so close to his face will make him sick.”

“He’s lived in a mine for thirty years,” said Carnistir, firmly. “If anything, dust is what his lungs are adjusted to.”

The effect of the familiar scent was clear to see, and within a few minutes Maedhros’ breathing steadied. He opened his eyes; blearily, he looked up at his brother. 

Maglor kept sewing calmly, waiting for him to speak.

“What are you making, Maglor,” he finally said, groaning a little as he shifted on the bed.

“A set of smallclothes for you,” Maglor said, threading the needle.

“Why?”

Maglor didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Reaching over and touseling his brother’s hair, he said:

“So you’ll have something to wear once you’re well and up and about, silly! What, did you think we’d make you go about the settlement naked once you’re well?”

Maedhros cringed away from his hand as though he had been slapped; Maglor froze. As he realised his mistake, his brother gulped, buried himself deeper in the blankets and began to quietly sob. Furious with himself, Maglor got up from his chair, knelt beside the bed and began to fuss over him, trying not to think about the information he had just learned.

Fiddling with the fringed edge of a blanket, Maglor stroked his forehead and said:

“Maedhros, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking. It was a mistake.”

“No it wasn’t!” Maedhros said weakly, burying himself further beneath the blankets. As always in moments of distress, he made to bite down on his remaining bandaged hand, but Maglor grabbed it and held it away from him upon the mattress, though he squirmed in protest.

“Shh, shh…”

He held him there until his brother gave in, stopped fighting and allowed himself to be handled, as always. Maglor hated to exert any sort of control at all over his brother’s body like this, but they could not have him biting his remaining hand further to shreds than he already had. 

Motionless upon the mattress, staring at his hand with eyes like black rocks, he finally said:

“You lie. You knew how they kept me. You saw the pictures.”

Maglor paused with his hands clenched around his brother’s bony fingers.

“Saw what pictures, Nelyo? What on earth are you talking about?”

He looked up at him, baffled.

“The pictures of me Mairon kept sending you. He sent out riders with them, I saw them...”

Maglor wrapped both his hands around his brothers sole one, clutched it to his chest. With a slight smile, and growing pride at the hopeful look in his brother’s wide eyes, he said:

“Nelyo. I burnt every letter Mairon sent without looking at it. I never opened any of them, or saw a thing they contained, not even one.”

It was like a fog had been lifted from Maedhros’ face. He looked at Maglor like he was the very appearance of arien and tilion, and perhaps the very first time, Maglor saw something resembling glints of happiness in the corners of his brother’s mouth and eyes. So precious they were, he traced his fingers along his brother’s cheeks, as if by touching his happy expression he could prove it was real and fossilise it forever. 

“Really?” he asked. “But- he said he’d seen them delivered to you-”

“Delivered, not read. Whatever was in them, I never saw it Nelyo. Whatever it was, it burned to ash and I never saw it. No one did.”

Maedhros rolled back against the sheets, and weakly, he smiled. _ Smiled. _

Tears formed in Maglor’s eyes. This was real. His elder brother was smiling, and how he wished he could preserve the moment forever.

Gently, Maglor pulled the blankets up around his brother’s shoulders and tucked them in. 

“Shh, go back to sleep Nelyo. All is well.”

His brother fell back into sleep with that little happiness upon his battered face, and to Maglor it felt as though a mountain had been lifted off of him. 


End file.
